Announcing Blogs4god.com

During my foray into the world of RSS yesterday I ran across many new RSS feeds. One of those feeds led me to Blogs for God, a semi definitive listing of Christ centered blogs or journals

I registered our BLOG and RSS feed and I received the e-mail this morning that our(my) blog had been added to their index. Thanks so much for doing this Dean.

Yesterday I managed to break away from Cyberworld long enough to make a trip to the Berkeley County Solid Waste (DUMP) facility to get rid of moving boxes and assorted trash left by the former residents here. I also found a new appreciation for my wife's station wagon's air conditioner. When we moved from Greenville SC back to Duck Ditch USA (Goose Creek) it was painfully obvious to me that it is almost 5 to 10 degrees cooler in the upstate. That must be because we are closer to the mountains there. Maybe the elevation is higher? I do know that the humidity here is stifling compared to there.

This marks day 7 back home. We are still underemployed and over appreciated. Slowly but surely the junk is coming out of the boxes and being put in its appropriate places. This time around we are minus our 32" TV, cable TV , washer and dryer. The TV and cable connection is something we are going to learn to do without. I miss the ability to watch TV when I am eating dinner. I also miss late night TV which was used from time to time to help me to get to sleep on those nights where I was wide awake while everyone in the house was passed out.

The sad thing about cable TV is that everything on it with regards to movies and the like I have already seen. How many waking moments in my life have I wasted watching the stuff that Hollywood has produced for centuries. The answer to that question is too many. God has given each of us minds filled with the desire to acquire knowledge and to be inquisitive about our surroundings and environment. Somehow we have lulled ourselves to sleep mentally with the multitude of entertainment options in our world. Everywhere you turn there is input. Do you remember the movie Short Circuit? Johnny 5 being ALIVE. More input, more input he cried as he devoured hours and hours of TV programming and absorbed all the history and information that provided him.

Is TV sort of like a live LOG of human history perhaps? It certainly reflects human nature and the decline of morality through the centuries.
Johnny 5 (robot in movie) was always afraid of any attempt to DISASSEMBLE. Thinking back on the movie and on how information can be both positive and negative I am wondering if we have been allowing the garbage from Hollywood to slowly disassemble us mentally and spiritually.

For some reason television fills the role of allowing us to open up our minds and let go of the controls to what we allow to enter in. No, I do not feel that TV in and of itself is inherently evil or that it has supernatural abilities to control our minds. I do feel that we has humans have an uncanny desire to be entertained. We need to escape from the realities of this life and so we allow the boob tube to lull us into a false feeling of freedom and fantasy.

No sooner had we settled into our former residence Cable TV reared his ugly head in the shape of shared cable with our neighbor. Was I tempted to take the innocent black cable from my neighbor and run it through the window and attach it to my 13" (cough) black TV with no remote. Heck, I could atleast watch Jay Leno at night as I allowed my body and mind to be lulled into the world of sleepiness. Surprisingly enough for me I managed to remind myself that I would be stealing cable and not sharing it and that I need to be doing more constructive things with my mind than being lulled to a stupor by the television.

The down side of no television is that you are insulated and shielded from all the droning of all those marketing schemes called commercials and all the news broadcasts from around the world. Now that I think of that it is really not that bad. I can now choose to fill my time and my mind and spirit with OTHER things. I can choose to pursue knowledge and wisdom through reading of my bible, bible commentaries and listening to Christian radio.

The problem with time for us humans is that the hour glass that God has running for each of us is doing one thing each day. Time is slowly but surely running out. One day that sand will finally reach the end. The sand that was at the top will have filtered through to the bottom and time we end for us as we know it. Then we will be face to face with the God that created us and our lives will be a story that can be read through eternity. Our lives are but a vapor according to the bible.
In Ecclesisastes we read that everything has its season and God has given man a "season" to live in. It is up to us to do something positive and constructive with our lives during this season. God gave us life and grace because He created us and loves us with a love that is everlasting. We can never earn that grace or love. We can however use what God has given us and give it back to Him with seasons of time in which we pursue our relationship with Him and use what He gives us back to the community of people that He has placed us in.

How many people are prisoners in their own mind ? How many people has Hollywood captured? How many people are drowning in their daily entertainment shielded with a false hope and false security from the world full of dying people all around them? When we choose to substitute God for the things of this world we are short circuiting Gods perfect will and plan for our lives. We are more than just innocent microbes with no purpose other than to eat, drink , sleep and reproduce. We are creatures that are made in His image. We were designed to praise and worship our creator and to love him. We were created to bring pleasure to God Almighty through our devotion and love for Him and appreciation for His gifts to us.

Is it time for you and I to short circuit the controls that this world has on our lives and to refocus what we allow to enter into our minds and spirits? Instead of pursuing to be entertained and living in a fantasy world that gives us temporary relief we should instead be pursuing the truth. The problem with truth is that most of the time it really hurts.
Truth usually clears up all of the cloudy interference in our minds and gives us a clear reflection of who we are. The problem with truth is it always brings us to a point of making a decision. Decisions mean choices. A choice to change directions, attitudes and desires. When we are face to face with truth will we make the right choices? Most of the time when we make the right choice it will not be easy or a popular decision. In the book of Joshua we remember the cry of "choose you this day whom you will serve". What God are we serving anyway? Is God compartementalized in our lives and we only give him a tiny portion of our time, energy and resources?

If we only give God a tiny portion of our minds, hearts, spirit, gifts and talents what does that say about our devotion and love for Him? Do we love God this much as we spread out our arms signifying total surrender or do we have our arms wrapped around ourselves because we love ourselves and the things of this world so much that we can let go? Are we imprisoned by our own inability to let go and let God?

It is time that we short circuit the things in our world that are keeping us from being who God wants us to be. It is time for us to make decisions and choices that will not only redefine who we are but it will also redefine and change who the world is around us. When we learn how to redefine what makes us happy and what is important to us we will then be able to receive the full glory of God in our lives and be the containers of love, truth, mercy and grace that others in our lives will be able to turn to. The Bible says that we are to be separate from this world and not of this world. Be Ye Holy for I am Holy says the Lord God Almighty. Sanctification is a life long process that only God can work out through us. God needs for us to be devoted and sold out to the process though. God will never force us to short circuit those things that keep us from knowing Him fully.